Utah pastor inspired to display tablets

PAROWAN, Iron County — You can stand on a public sidewalk and read it or drive by on Main Street and see it. But best of all, say proponents, you can't remove it.

A stone monument featuring a red-rock plate carving of the Ten Commandments now resides right on Main Street in Parowan but on property owned by the Parowan United Methodist Church.

"There is so much public sentiment for it," said pastor Douglas Harrell. "It's in a strategic location, right across from the high school where people can see it. We see high school kids stopping in front of it all the time to look at it and read it."

Harrell said the inspiration for erecting a monument to the Ten Commandments came to him in a dream the night Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore lost his job.

Moore first was suspended and later removed from office after refusing to obey a federal judge's order to remove a Ten Commandments monument on display inside the publicly owned Alabama Supreme Court Building rotunda.

Numerous demonstrations around the country, including some in Utah, were held in support of the embattled Republican known as the "Ten Commandments Judge."

"I was visibly upset with what happened to Chief Justice Moore," Harrell said. "He ran for office on that platform, and it wasn't even a tight race. I dreamed that night that we created a monument right here."

Parowan Mayor Ronald Smith spoke at a half-hour-long dedication ceremony attended by about 30 of the town's nearly 2,000 residents.

"This is an appropriate and fitting addition to our city whose very beginning in 1851 was motivated by an overwhelming desire and dedication for religious freedom," Smith said. "The Ten Commandments are just that. They are not the 10 suggestions, or 10 ideas for better behavior. They are 10 basic rules, laws, even commandments God has given to man which must be adhered to if there is any hope of maintaining a civilized world."

Local leaders of the Assembly of Jesus Christ Church and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints also participated in the program. The United Methodists' Men's Club spearheaded the drive for donations, which came from generous contributors all over the community, Harrell said.

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